Invective Reviewed By Dr. Wesly Britton of Bookpleasures.com

Dr. Wesley Britton

Reviewer Dr. Wesley
Britton: Dr. Britton is the author of four non-fiction books on
espionage in literature and the media. Starting in fall 2015, his new
six-book science fiction series, The Beta-Earth Chronicles, debuted
via BearManor Media. For seven years, he was co-host of online
radio’s Dave White Presents where he contributed interviews with a
host of entertainment insiders. Before his retirement in 2016, Dr.
Britton taught English at Harrisburg Area Community College. Learn
more about Dr. Britton at hisWEBSITE

The first sentence of Andy
Owen's Invective reads "You can call me Ishmael." Clearly
Owen is evoking Herman Melville's 1851 Moby-Dick, and an awareness of
that novel would aid readers exploring this contemporary reworking of
Melville's tale of, among other matters, revenge, hate, and
self-discovery.

According to Owen,
Invective came about as a result of his 7 years in British military
intelligence running sources within extremist groups in both
Afghanistan and Iraq. After reading Moby-Dick, he was struck by the
similarities between some characters in the novel and people he was
working both for and against. In particular, he saw the drives for
individuals to associate themselves with causes to give their lives
meaning, the urges for adventure, and an existential angst that
motivates Jihadists to believe suicide is the path for spiritual
fulfillment.

The saga of the new
Ishmael opens when the British-raised 23 year old learns his birth
father was a Jihadist suicide bomber who killed himself when Ishmael
was only one year old. From that point on, Ishmael is torn
between two cultures, the Western world he grew up in and the Muslim
beliefs he has come to embrace. At the beginning of the book, he's
drawn into spying on a terrorist group for British intelligence while
he's equally uncertain he can betray his Islamic brothers. He sees
a terrible balance between the two sides. On one, he witnesses
terrorist bombs blowing up innocent civilians. On the other, he is
damaged by a drone strike where the bomb comes from the sky. Who can
claim moral superiority in these circumstances?

In Invective, the Ahab
figure is Mujahid Al-Hab ("the alpha wolf"), the terrorist
leader whose quest is to seek out "The White Sheik" for
further training in the Pakistani mountains. The Sheik, apparently,
was once an American named Peter Milville who left his former life to
become a Jihadist. Another character obviously drawn from Moby-Dick
is Kwesi Queg, the pigeon English speaking African whose face is
marred by scars. Of course, he's based on the tattooed Polynesian
harpoonist, Queequeg. Throughout, there's plenty of overt imagery
(Killer whales, leviathans) to remind readers of the parallels Owen
sees between Melville's 19th century fiction and our world now.

Invective is far from a
spy novel. Ishmael's involvement with British intelligence is mainly
a means for Owen to give government officers a platform to recite
their perspectives on winning the War on Terror and their very narrow
views on the motivations of terrorists. But from the beginning of his
"mission," Ishmael gives his handlers minimal information
and indeed takes measures to thwart their surveillance of him. While
he questions the invective of the arrogant and vicious leadership of
Muj, he finds himself understanding why those who hate the Great
Satan feel the way they do, even if their views are often shaped more
by charismatic leaders than any real ideology. Still, despite his
questions, it's for the small band of would-be Jihadists that Ishmael
feels his strongest bonds.

Invective is also not
action-adventure. While Mug's cell goes on a journey that takes
them from England to Pakistan by land and sea, nothing really happens
along the way, at least not until the final drone strike. Were there
more conflict and duels with man and nature on this part of the trek,
perhaps this short novel would have found a wider readership.
Instead, it's a very talkie, introspective, psychological drama that,
at its best, should blow away stereotypical views of who the
Jihadists of the world actually are. Like many a Cold War espionage
story, Owen reminds us why insiders often see a moral hypocrisy on
both sides.

In fact, putting Moby- Dick
aside, Invective is square in the tradition of books beginning with
Joseph Conrad's 1907 The Secret Agent. Then, the violence of
terrorism came from anarchists. Were their motives substantially
different from Islamic anger? Such are the questions Invective
raises, and these are important questions to explore in greater depth
than black-and-white dichotomies. So Invective is a book to read if
you want your preconceptions of modern terrorism challenged.